Recent Tasting Notes

This green tea blend with cherry blossom was very aromatic!
The taste wasn’t too strong but it was on the stronger side which was nice because I wanted the cherry blossom taste but in way that doesn’t overpower the green tea (which this does not)
All to say, this was quite delicious.

Yesterday was filled with travel, tea, good music, and great company. My friend Kim and I went to Columbus for the day. We started our day at ZenCha Tea Salon in the Short North. This was the tea I chose to have with my meal. I’m pretty sure our “Tea Ambassador” had me steep it much to long. It was very green and bitter. A bit disappointing, but I still drank every drop! The food we had was delicious, so that more than made up for the bitterness of the tea.

Dark Rose Tea
Dry aroma: clean, soft earthy notes, but little scent
Wet aroma: sharp rose scent mingles with an almost stewed fruit/strawberry aroma and a ‘tannic’ brisk background.
Appearance: Dark compressed tea brick in the shape of a heart with the letters YQY impressed into the rose. Resembled a formed tou cho and weighed 4grams.
Cup:
1st extraction – deep reddish umber liquor with coppery bright legs at the edge of the cup. 7 minute extraction in 200 degree water in 8oz gaiwan; took that long for the compressed tea to begin to break apart and express color in the water without the need to physically agitate it to fall apart. Front tart, smoky elements with predominate smooth, clean tannic profile and a soft floral, elusive rose flavor resting in a complex tapestry of mouth textures and evolving flavors. The rose quickly would bloom on each sip, right before a faint earthy, smoky flavor would finish across the palate. Many layers of flavors finished on different parts of the tongue and left an almost rose petal-fleshy body.
2nd extraction: 190 degrees for 3 minutes. Reddish, blushing liquor. Rose notes rise to the front with complex floral flavors and a smoky, fruit aftertaste like grilled apricots and fruit nectar like texture. Tannins isolate the center of the tongue and flavors tingles on the side of the mouth and under the edges of the tongue.
3rd extraction: 180 degrees for 4 minutes. Color thins to a reddish, clear coppery hue. Creamy rice, toasted hints, light rose-floral, smoky profile.
4th extraction: 200 degree water for 7 minutes. Orange-reddish clarity in the liquor. Thin rose predominance with almost metallic finish.

Over all an interesting tea and a few more observational notes:

In the latter stages, when the tea was fully uncompressed and the loose leaf settled, it was an almost FOP like cut and the rose pieces were of a pink/ghostly pale color, unlike the red so common in rose scented/flavored teas.

I feel a special note is deserved concerning my use of the term ‘smoky’ in this particular tea description. This is nothing like Lapsang Souchong, Earl Grey, or toasted oolongs. Its flavor is more like bohea: soft, fruity, and complex, almost like grilled peaches or delicate cold-wood smoked salmon lox. The flavor is soft, subtle and not intrusive and compliments the stewed fruit/rose hints in the tea, giving it a deep complexity. It at first seems to hint at chemical complexity, but retains a very natural flavor and feel.

This was a gift from I Cheng, the owner and founder of Zen Cha in Columbus OH, a fellow tea enthusiast who has always been kind and generous in his interactions with me. I was visiting his Bexley store for Sunday brunch and ran into him and this tea was given to me from his last remaining samples.

Preparation

As they say..Very nicely balanced. has a lot of steeping longevity in this one. Deep full flavor but very little bitterness and light on the oceanic flavors. Much more on the sweet side of things to my taste buds at least.

Preparation

Tried the 2010 Shincha version of this and I’m shocked. It is sensational. Total contrast to the regular 2009 harvest tea I thought was mediocre earlier. Not sure if 2010 is just a better harvest or if the Shincha version shines.

Earthy and seaweed style aromas. Definitely in the more astringent realm of green teas on the palate, there wasn’t much room for error with brewing – it was very easy to push the astringency too far. Interesting but temperamental. 75/100

Price paid: $31 USD for 100g
Buy again: No

Preparation

1 day ago. One of the best Golden Yunnans I have had. Big leaves, very tippy, the only thing is that it came in a cellophane container. After 1 pot it never tasted the same again. I thought I brewed it wrong so I kept trying. Still this weird aftertaste that lingered. If anyone goes to Columbus Ohio, be sure to check out Zen-Cha.

This Shizuoka guricha has a natural sweetness and dark green appearance. It is very different from traditional guricha and more closely resembles a fukamushi. The flavor holds up well. I’m on my 4th steep.